Rolling Jazz Thread 2020

Some really nice Rhodes & drums duets:
https://deedsone.bandcamp.com/album/bookends

Matt Shipp has written a very interesting piece on what he calls the Black Mystery School of pianists. The school consists of Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Mal Waldron, Randy Weston, Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, Hasaan Ibn Ali, Sun Ra, and Horace Tapscott, with partial credit given to Dave Burrell, Geri Allen, Rodney Kendrick, and Ran Blake (who is white). What's just as interesting as who's in is who isn't — Ellington, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, Mary Lou Williams, McCoy Tyner...read the whole thing. It's a fascinating window into how Shipp thinks about the piano.

Wow, very interesting, thanks.

Hasaan Ibn Ali - here's someone you don't see getting mentioned very often, he was a big influence on Monk and was clearly brilliant on the evidence of his one album with Max Roach. But he faded into obscurity and iirc he was homeless when he died.

aka The Legendary Hassan

BTW, RIP Stanley Cowell, apparently - another pianist you don't see mentioned often but who did a lot of interesting work as an improviser and composer

RIP Jeff Clayton, too.

xp okay Shipp is including Those who cultivate a certain mysterioso air and vibe to go with a high level of (sufficiently, for him) autodidactic idiosyncracy and proficiency and stylistic distinctiveness and apparently dramatic flair, innkeepers of thee flame, proprieters and high priests of the mystery religions of the Ancient World as Now(also "fock the world")--but, although he keeps referring to Waldron, doesn't say what brings him into this circle, or Randy Moses, compared to some who are excluded. Maybe he'll write some more about it, or could be drawn out by an interviewer (unperson?)
Don't (yet) know that this is a very useful way to think about these artists, or ones excluded, beyond obvious connotations. Obviously some kinds of playing are more likely to be successfully taught.

"fuck" the world, that is.

RIP Diane Moser too. Probably not known to most of you. I used to go see her big band sometimes on Tuesdays at the John Birks Gillespie Auditorium. https://www.njarts.net/jazz/diane-moser-jazz-pianist-composer-bandleader-and-educator-has-died/

new Cortex album is excellent.

― calzino, Thursday, December 10, 2020 10:21 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Are you referring to the 70s jazz-funk band with the album Troupeau Bleu? Regardless, thanks, calz: because of your post, I discovered Troupeau Bleu and am loving it.

Love the Shipp essay, and I wouldn't be inclined to argue as if he's setting up some sort of objective criteria. It's clearly his personal canon and a really interesting read. Also intuitively makes sense, there are artists in every genre who set up their own world with its own rules, and their influence tends to be more spiritual since trying to use their language directly is an obvious copy (maybe this is true about, say, Prince?).

Jordan otm.

More interesting to me than 'Sincerity' in Music

Seems like he has used that term before he wrote that essay.

RIP Jeff Clayton, too.

Now Kurt’s friend Patti Austin

xps

lol no PBKR. I meant the Scando acoustic-skronk meisters with Gard Nilssen on the sticks latest album called Legal Tender! But I wouldn't be surprised if there is some vague connection or influence there!

I was wondering as it seemed heavier on the funk than the jazz. It's a great album!

I will check out the newer Cortex, thanks.

So this is very, um, cellular, but micros v. gradually reveal a vein of continuity, as B's bass instruments become seamless shades of his other reeds' full tones, no squeals---I snoozed out briefly, but woke up & got more and more tuned in past the 20-minute mark of first track (had been tuned into some segments before)---now about 3/4 way through second track, which flows from first:
released June 4, 2020

Anthony Braxton: sopranino, soprano, alto, baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones, contrabass clarinet

Eugene Chadbourne: Gibson Marauder electric, Gibson acoustic, bajo sexto, Deering 5-string banjo, Deering fretless 5-string banjo, Regal 5-string banjo, prepared guitar

1.
Improv One 57:38
2.
Improv Two 54:13

3.
Improv Three 56:14
4.
Improv Four 57:07
5.
Improv Five 57:42
6.
Improv Six 59:48
7.
Improv Seven 54:05
8.
Improv Eight 59:26

https://newbraxtonhouse.bandcamp.com/album/duo-improv-2017

Chadbourne's good too, esp, high picks and pecks x bass instruments (fave is that "tuba" sound, now to sopranino, banjo not that far from "You Really Got Me" riff before arpeggio)

One for the true headz, but/and if you think you might like it, you probably will, at least some of the time.

(Later today I'm gonna check xpost Thumbscrew's The Anthony Braxton Project, also on bandcamp.)

Basser still!

and now, along w hungry bass beasts, prepared guitar, I take it, is what's going from "snaredrum" figures to strumming, picking...

bass gettin' lonely, some subterranean blues suggested, crisp kinda-Spanish strings say, "That's the breaks, bass." I'll shut up now.

lol no PBKR. I meant the Scando acoustic-skronk meisters with Gard Nilssen on the sticks latest album called Legal Tender! But I wouldn't be surprised if there is some vague connection or influence there!

― calzino, Saturday, December 19, 2020 5:59 AM (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks, this Cortex is great as well.

Great band at Smalls right now.

Will prob just take their word for the Metheny, but the rest of this looks pretty appealing: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/21/the-10-best-jazz-albums-of-2020. Some Brits I hadn't heard of, though did already know several now on Blue Note Re:Imagined, and glad to see it here---not as far-ranging as Soul Jazz Records comp Kaleidoscope, but v. fortifying.

Was it here that someone rec'd the Shiroishi 'Descension' record? It's making my afternoon, such deeply felt playing and processing.

hell yeah @ braxton / chadbourne

Dave Kikowski playing Xmas tunes at Smalls right now in a duet with Matt Clohesy.

Was it here that someone rec'd the Shiroishi 'Descension' record? It's making my afternoon, such deeply felt playing and processing.

I'm not super familiar with Shiroishi, but I reviewed a duo album he did with drummer Dylan Fujioka, Neba Neba, for The Wire this summer. Pretty good stuff.

Really appreciate this thread guys

cool! well, this is the first track of the Shiroishi I was talking about— the feedback mostly cuts out after the first minute, and it becomes just absolutely rending stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uow-5jtdVdE

Nice dreamier/ECM-ier approach on this Fuubutsushi (風物詩) collab btw Shiroishi/Jusell/Prymek/Sage on Cached Media (all tracked separately in self-iso this summer and released in September):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWzDuxyISy4

Trumpet player encounters all that shit jazz:

I am furious!!! We see this crap happening all the time, but it hits different when it hits home!!! I typically try to keep things positive, but nothing about this video is positive.
The lady in this video assaulted my 14-year-old son and me as we came down from our room in the @arlohotels Arlo Soho to get breakfast. This person quote on quote “lost” her iPhone, and apparently, my son magically acquired it, which merely ridiculous. This incident went on for five more minutes, me protecting my son from this lunatic. She scratched me; she Tackled and grabbed him. He is a child!!! Now watch it again. This lady is not even a guest at the hotel. She checked out of the hotel on the 23rd of December; today is the 26th. Now watch as the manager advocates for the lady who is not even a hotel guest, insisting and attempting to use his managerial authority to force my son to show his phone to this random lady. He actually empowered her!!! He didn't even consider the fact we were actually the guests! Now think about the trauma that my son now has to carry, only coming downstairs to have box day brunch with his dad. Then... her phone was magically returned by an Uber driver a few minutes after this incident. No apology from her after this traumatic situation to my son, not me. No apologies from the establishment. This shit happens so often. It needs to stop!!! If anyone recognizes this person, please tag or DM. (NYPD:charges have since been upgraded, search is on for this apparent tourist.) video on https://www.instagram.com/tv/CJR6LviHFkd/?utm_source=ig_embed

jeeeeeeeeezus, how ugly.

Pertinent recent New York Mag piece along the same lines:
https://www.thecut.com/article/montclair-new-jersey-permit-karen.html

That Keyon Harrold story made the news. It's getting around.

Countering that news, a little bit, this is coming up:
In 1977, the first Jazz Alive New Year's Eve special was broadcast live from The Cookery and The Village Gate. The tradition continues with Toast of the Nation, NPR's annual holiday special that rings in the New Year with jazz.

This year features some of the best jazz collectives performing today. Hear four solid hours of festive music from the Catherine Russell Trio (recorded live at Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center), The Jazz Gallery All-Stars (recorded live at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), KOKOROKO (recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall in London) and Pink Martini (recorded live from bandleader Thomas Lauderdale's home).
News followed by links to prev. live sets from all participants:
https://www.npr.org/2020/12/28/948032453/toast-of-the-nation-202
Will listen for the sake of KOKOROKO and Jazz Gallery All-Stars, whom I didn't know about, but incl. Miguel Zenón, alto; Melissa Aldana, tenor; Joel Ross, vibraphone; Charles Altura, guitar; Aaron Parks, piano; Ben Williams, bass; Kendrick Scott, drums; Jessica Boykin-Settles, vocals.) Will give the other bands a shot also.

Couldn't find a good thread to bump for this, but there's a new Maceo Parker album in 2020 and it's a great example of the form (the form being Maceo Parker albums). It's also one of his New Orleans-y albums, in terms of the players and the tune selection.

new thread?

Rolling Jazz Thread 2021